Phil Donahue's film inspiration
Wounded Iraq war veteran's plight pushed talk show host into action
By Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post Film Critic
Article Last Updated: 08/16/2008 11:19:59 AM MDT
It's a powerful scene in a film blessed — and, given the subject, cursed — with them.
In "Body of War," Tomas Young attends an anti-Iraq-war event. Members of Gold Star families reach out toward the man in a wheelchair.
"They can't take their hands off him," says Phil Donahue, who co-directed the film with documentary veteran Ellen Spiro. "For that moment, while they're holding a card or picture of their loved one in one hand — a loved one who was killed — with their other hand they're touching the warm face of Tomas Young."
Then the first-time filmmaker (but TV talk show legend) shares an insight he learned from Young's mother, Cathy, who figures prominently in the movie.
"For a moment, they're allowing themselves to believe they're touching the loved one they'll never touch again."
Donahue met Young at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Young had requested a meeting with Ralph Nader, who invited his friend along.
"He claims he remembers meeting me," says Donahue. "Boy, I would be surprised. He was totally whacked, medicated. As I stood at his bed looking down at this kid — he was 24 at the time — his mother explained the nature of his injuries. The first thing that goes through your head is, 'Why him, not me? What random fate brings this life-altering tragedy to a 24-year-old?' "
Young enlisted in the Army soon after the attacks of 9/11. The Kansan was 22. He arrived in Iraq in March 2004. On April 4, on his first mission, a bullet entered above his left collarbone, paralyzing him.
Donahue, who never made a feature film before, wasn't looking for a wounded soldier to build a movie around. Young forced him out of retirement.
"All I knew was I met a man at Walter Reed Hospital, and I wanted everybody to meet him. I wanted every American to meet him."
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